The know-it-alls who no longer are in the position to dictate my official opinions speak highly of creativity as as long as it is safely deposited with others or effectively walled-off. In the near area it is just frightening. But what is it?

One sort of creativeness is a craziness - with ideas so far off that men in white coats and with restraining tools (straitjacket or drugs) can come and fetch at any time if arguments become heated. So it is easily dealt with.

The other one is rational. To be creative within a rational system one has to know the system. One has to know what already exists - in order to know that it is new, either entirely or by the components or methods used to create it. So the creative person embarrasses the weak boss.

The easiest way for a boss to cope is plain denial

Spinoza was targeted by a hitman, but survived. Tesla had his laboratory burned down. Lavoisier was guillotined. Korolev went to Kolyma.

Solid rationality may be labelled as craziness by those wishing to defend the existing order. So the environment of established institutions or companies may be deeply hostile towards really new thoughts. Various sorts of censorship may apply. If the creativeness takes the form of political uttering, the punishments may become dangerous to the mental or physical health. It may be shitstorms on Twitter, career limitations, forced psychiatric treatment, imprisonment or murder - depending on time and place. So don't go public unless you and your family are willing and able to cope with the penalties.

In this context it is enlightening to reread the

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11870

XXXII. THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND

In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is crazy. No way will he be king.

Sometimes they can be combined. Or, restated: How could tools be created to serve political (or moral) purposes?

There might be something to learn about this from the story of Ralph Abernathy - a US civil rights activist - and close collaborator and successor of Martin Luther King. (The Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955)

Hmmm.
Reagan and Thatcher - pre-baby-boomers - gave us the financial crises and the downsizing of industries. George W Bush, the baby-boomer (b 1946) gave us the Iraq war. Is Trump (b 1946) the baby-boomer who will set things right? Or is it Angela Merkel (b 1954) or Vladimir Putin (b 1952)? Or Marine Le Pen (b 1968)?

Ronnie - movie actor, good guy. Maggie (G-d rest her soul) - trained chemist (CHEMIST!) and libertarian, who, among many other useful things, handed their marxist-leninist asses to would-be "revolutionaries" coal miners back in 80-s, privatized the economy and provided her fellow britons with another ~20 years of prosperity and peace. The rest that you've named are joke, good guys/gals at best. Putin? "Russian" pretender, genetic Veps otherwise, alpha-malish, masculine placeholder for something that is going to replace modern day Russia civilizationally.

Everything good and positively technological, that is going to happen, is going to happen after the next Greatest War, unfortunatly (no thanks to you, idealistic and gullible baby boomers, who brought us into it).

P.S. Fences will happen, localism(s) will happen, unimaginable sufferings will happen for the next ~15 years or so - until next Rennaissance comes again in early to mid-2030th, for those who are lucky enough to be alive and able-(minded)bodied at that spiritually golden time.

I think it is time to look more critically at the term "baby boom". The presently most urgent problems seem connected to the fact that there are and have been baby booms in countries that cannot sustain enlargements of their populations or utilise their young talent. And there is no remedy in sight as long as religion is almost all-powerful in fertility matters. Go and fill the earth, as God is reported to have said. Well - now the earth is full.

7 billion? When I was young, we were 3 billion. Norway was 3.5 million. Now there are 5 million. How was it with Syria? 5 million in 1960. 23 million in 2013. Pakistan 46 million in 1960, 182 million in 2013. No wonder people want to get away at almost any risk.

Mass emigration seems to be increasingly difficult. As long as contraception is forbidden, unavailable or unaffordable, the future is bound to be dominated by famine, epidemics or wars. The scare about vaccination might help, though, by keeping up infant mortality.

Because creativity always creates risks or losses to the establishment, the establishment keeps it under tight control. We have seen it in history, and we see it now, with all the time tighter controls with the universities. Who gets the money in public universities? It's the state-and-bureaucracy-approved institutions with their peer-reviewed projects.

And then: Where can a person be valuably creative? The easy answer is: At the border or one's competence. Inside of established fields one can be almost certain that someone has done it before.

I read and reread this book back in 2004, I really liked it, it didnt make sense to me but then but just the idea was captivating. These techniques do work but they take some practice, and not just theoretical also practical application to really appreciate them

I used to be an avid reader of De Bono. But too much has happened since then, both to me and to the world. I think creativity has lost much of its meaning because hierarchic power has replaced expertise.

There is nowadays a deep conflict between creative leaders and professional experts. Quite a few of those creative solutions are mere results of ignorance, laziness and unwillingness to study the existing facts. It is profoundly career-limiting to say that the emperor is strolling along with his butt bare, and it is useless to say it more discreetly. Posing, face saving, laziness and political correctness trump creativity all the time in technical places. A creative proposition coming from the wrong person will mean that the boss has not been up to the task. This is never taken lightly.

With TV series it is easy to see that at some point the ideas are worn out. No number of "po" will flog new life into a dead horse.

e

come again

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